


Castiel vs Neko Atsume (2)

by lizbobjones



Category: Supernatural, ねこあつめ | Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, minor discretionary warning: Cas displays canon levels of Not Okay-ness, references to Castiel being possessed by Lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7540411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere deep inside the over-occupied Jimmy vessel, Cas is cheerfully sitting on a porch with a cat on his lap, blissfully unaware of the world passing beyond his eyes while he’s stuck in a life size version of the Neko Atsume yard, content and forgetting that he ever was anything other than a guy with 30 cats to play with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castiel vs Neko Atsume (2)

**Author's Note:**

> Egged on to do this by Supernaturalapocalypse on Tumblr.  
> [original post](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/138433228003/is-there-any-way-to-spin-the-story-so-that-cas-is)

Dean didn’t know what he’d expected - some something terrifying and heavenly too bright to look at, or, if he let his heart hope, perhaps the same place he called home, Cas sitting around in the Bunker reading or watching trashy TV. It was nothing Dean had ever seen before, but… ordinary. A tall wooden fence with a gate, on a bland suburban street.

He pushed open the gate and peered inside.

The yard beyond was small, the house as nondescript as the others in the row, but it had its doors wide open, curtains catching in the breeze. Cas sat on the wooden porch, his feet on the step and a white cat curled up in his lap. He was stroking it absent mindedly, and smiling as he watched another cat, a tabby with one black ear, a few feet away playing with a cat toy on a long string. Two more cats, both black, were snoozing on a large cushion in the sun on a tree stump, and Dean had to step carefully past a cardboard box containing yet another cat as he picked his way towards Cas.

Even though they were outdoors his nose was already beginning to itch.

“Cas?” he asked, cautious of surprising him and upsetting the dream. He was pretty sure Cas should be able to see him; the African dream root had always worked that way before; but Cas still hadn’t shown any sign he’d noticed Dean.

Finally, Cas looked up. His eyes stayed unfocussed for a second, before he squinted up at Dean with a bit more clarity, like he’d taken a moment to recognise him. “Dean? What are you doing here?”

“I came to get you. Well, not get you because you haven’t gone anywhere… Except deep into whatever this is.”

Cas patted the edge of the porch next to him. “Sit down,” he suggested.

Dean glared at the cat in Cas’s lap, resenting how realistic it was. Cas went back to serenely petting it, his attention drifting, and Dean sat down, beginning to feel rather worried about him. He didn’t seem hurt in any way by being possessed by Lucifer for so long, but he didn’t seem entirely present either, even in his own dream.

“Um, do you remember how you got here?” Dean asked.

As if summoned, a brown and black cat appeared, hopping over the fence. It crossed straight to Dean, and as if sensing his panicked response begging it not to sit on him, promptly clambered onto his lap. Dean rubbed his nose furiously.

“I remember I sat down here and then the cats started to come here as well,” Cas said.

“Well, you were possessed by Lucifer,” Dean told him, hoping ripping the banaid off would work best. Cas just rolled his eyes at him like that was ridiculous. “You’re asleep. Dreaming,” Dean told him, rather more desperately. “It’s been two days since we got the devil outta you, and you still haven’t woken up.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible when I’ve been here with the cats for that last week,” Cas told him, very matter of fact and sure of himself.

Dean groaned, and looked around the yard again. There was a huge white cat lurking in the hedge, eyeing the bowl of food that was nearby. He suddenly remembered Cas complaining about some ridiculous thing, months ago, when he’d been messing around with the new phone they got him after everything with Rowena’s spell. Some monster white cat that… “Is this that stupid cat app you got addicted to?!” Dean blurted in amazement. The cat in his lap made a meow of protest at his raised voice, and to his embarrassment he spoke a little quieter, putting a hand on its back to comfort it. It felt warm and real and furry. “Cas, this isn’t real. You have to wake up, man.”

“Tubbs is over there,” Cas said, nodding to the hedge. “He’ll eat all the food in a minute, and then I have to refill the bowl or the cats will leave.”

“What if we let him?” Dean said, scritching the cat he was holding behind the ears.

Cas looked at him like he’d suggested they drive off a cliff. “But then the cats will leave.” He clutched the white cat closer.

“If the cats go, there’s nothing here in the yard for you, and you can wake up,” Dean said.

Tubbs crawled out from the hedge, and waddled across the yard, walking with the absolute surety of a cat that thinks its sneaking makes it invisible, despite being so fat its tummy was brushing the ground. It flopped over by the bowl, and began greedily hoovering up the cat food. Dean saw Cas twitch like he was going to shoo Tubbs away. He gritted his teeth and resisted. “If you scare him away he doesn’t leave a very good reward,” Cas muttered.

“I swear I am deleting this off your phone when you wake up,” Dean said.

Tubbs finished eating and didn’t even move, just rolled over and fell asleep on the spot, legs in the air.

It wasn’t long after that that the cat in the cardboard box woke up. It poked a dark head out, blinked odd-coloured blue and green eyes at Tubbs, and, seeing nothing to eat now the bowl was cleared, darted out of the yard.

Cas made a move like he was going to stand up, and Dean caught his arm and pulled him back. “We’re waiting the cats out, remember?” he said.

The white cat on Cas’s lap looked up, curious about the interruption to the stroking. Cas seemed to realise that would be one less cat in the yard if he didn’t settle down, so he carried on stroking it, and Dean let go of his arm.

The sleeping cats on the cushions were next - birdsong from somewhere startled them awake. They both shook themselves, and one came right over to the food bowl, nosed around it, gave Tubbs a very disappointed look, and headed out of the gate, head held high. The other cat had vanished too when Dean looked to see if it was still there.

Cas was stroking the cat in his lap much harder than necessary.

Dean put a hand on his shoulder, and hoped that Cas would be okay, that this was just part of his dream. If Lucifer had put him this deep under to stop him from fighting back, then Dean was terrified that just waking him up wouldn’t be enough. But Cas leaned into his touch just a tiny bit, and even if he barely seemed to understand what was going on, that felt like something real about him still. Dean stroked Cas’s shoulder with his thumb as they watched the cat now snoozing by the toy in the corner. The sky was turning a little pink around the edges, and it was an amazingly calm and peaceful evening, just doing nothing.

He hated to admit that he saw the appeal of it, especially with the lives they led…

Dean sneezed violently, startling the cat out of his lap and the one in the corner - in moments the yard had half the number of cats in it, and Tubbs was rousing from its sleep.

“I need to refill the food bowl!” Cas said, with about as much lightning sharp urgency as discussing their most dangerous battle plans. Dean caught him by the arm again as he tried to get up, and pulled Cas down.

“No, you’re waking up and that’s final.” Since he was free of a cat to weigh him down, Dean put an arm around Cas’s shoulders, and used his other hand to grip his arm tightly, a sort of sideways hug but also a desperate plea for Cas to stay put. 

They watched Tubbs waddle back into the hedge, and with a rustle the huge cat disappeared through a gap somewhere. Dean relaxed his grip on Cas into more of just the hug.

“I suppose you’re going to leave too,” Cas said, and Dean nearly answered in confusion before he realised Cas was talking to the cat on his lap.

It yawned and meowed softly. 

“C’mon, Cas. Just stand up and let it go about its business and we can go home.”

Cas obstinately kept stroking the cat.

“I like it here.”

“I can tell. But we need you back in the real world now.” He sighed, feeling more than a little deja vu about the phrasing, feeling like he spent most of his life talking loved ones back from terrible places. “I need you.”

Cas rested his head on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean fought an urge to stroke his hair too and make a weird chain of him petting Cas’s hair and Cas stroking the cat.

They stayed that way for a while longer, until finally the white cat (Snowball, Cas told him) got bored or hungry, and slid out of Cas’s grasp. She looked up at him and mewed, and then suddenly made up her mind to be elsewhere and dashed out of the yard.

“Okay, cats are gone, and you are waking up,” Dean said.

Cas looked over at him, blinking in confusion. “Dean?” he asked, apparently only seeing Dean for the first time. “We appear to be in the Neko Atsume yard.”

“I know. You’re having a really annoying moral lesson about getting addicted to free apps.”

Cas glared at him, but he had the the presence of mind at long last to wake up.

A moment later Dean was blinking groggily awake lying awkwardly on the edge of his own bed, the sort of one inch from rolling onto the floor position he’d felt necessary to make the most space between him and where Cas had been stretched out on the other side of the bed for the last few days. He was still rubbing his eyes in confusion when he heard Sam’s voice: “You did it! Cas is waking up!”

“How long was I out?” Dean grumbled, pulling himself into a sitting position. Cas was cracking open one eye as well, looking extremely reluctant to be awake.

“About six hours,” Sam said.

Dean groaned. “I was held hostage,” he complained. “I wasn’t kidding, gimme Cas’s phone. That app has to go.”

“No!” Cas jolted awake properly, in the way of one dragged back from a nightmare. Dean looked at the alarm in his expression and thought about how peaceful Cas had been in the yard. Okay, so it had been a horrible spell by Lucifer to keep him placated, but that had been the happy place he’d chosen… Clearly it meant a lot to Cas.

He felt something soften inside. “Fine,” he grumbled, but he didn’t mean it any more, as belatedly relief washed over him to see Cas awake and apparently back to himself. “But only so we don’t have to get you a real cat.”


End file.
